Mid-Major Madness Power Rankings: The nation’s best begin to separate

One thing I’ve always liked about our Power Rankings is that our voters come from all over the country. Do they have their biases? Sure. That’s unavoidable. But it also means every mid-major has a voice. If a team in the southwest is playing well and not getting much attention, we have Josh, who has probably seen them live and can report back. Chris, meanwhile, has seen every Summit League school come through his corner of the midwest, while I feel like I have a good grip on the northeast.

As much as this helps us, it also means there’s bound to be some variation on our ballots, and through the first nine weeks, that was the case throughout. You’ll see below that we still can’t agree on much south of the top 10 — one of the reasons we have so many ties. But our top six stayed the same this week from last week, and nearly all of us had those teams in some order up top.

That means the best teams in the country are separating themselves from the rest. We’ve known Gonzaga and Saint Mary’s were up there for a while, but now it’s clear that UNC Wilmington and Illinois State belong in the conversation as well, as Middle Tennessee continues to knock on the door.

The complete rankings are below.

Mid-Major Madness Power Rankings

Preseason

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9